Confidence Tricks (2 page)

“Yes, Officer. Two men, both of them large and intimidating, threatening to kill Todd at every turn.”

“No, Officer. I didn’t attack the man. At one point, the robber fell and hurt his shoulder, but I’m just a woman. What could I have possibly done to make that happen?”

Tears had helped. Tears and Todd’s version of the story, which skewed things decidedly in his favor. She wasn’t sure if he actually
believed
he was the hero of the day, saving her from raping and pillaging and all that, or if he was choosing to ignore that brief moment when his supposed girlfriend, a slightly empty-headed yoga instructor named Natalie Hall, kicked a man’s ass and threatened to end his life in a whirlwind blitz of bones and body parts.

It doesn’t matter
. All that counted was that she was home, Todd didn’t think any less of her for putting her own brand of street fighting to good use, and, with any luck, her plan could continue moving forward with just a few slight adjustments.

She grabbed one of the baby wipes in the trunk and scraped away at her make-up, which had streaked black and tan over her face as she’d faked hysteria. She scrubbed harder when the ancient church bell down the street from the apartment complex rang two ominous notes, a clear sign of how late it had grown.

Her game face removed, she turned her attention to the rest of her façade. She extracted the silicone cutlets from her bra and slipped off her heels, tossing the dangerously tall shoes deep into the gym bag she kept stashed in the trunk. It would have been a huge relief to take off the Spanx that vacuum-packed her body into a seamless collection of curves, but the night was already way too far gone. An oversized sweatshirt hid the low plunge of her dress, and tennis shoes—which she had to shove painfully over three new blisters on each heel—rendered her expensive black minidress almost unnoticeable.

It would have to be enough. Hopefully, Bea would be fast asleep and fail to notice that Poppy was hours later than promised, looking like a woman making her way home from the undeniably worst date of her life.

“Don’t you dare make a sound,” Bea whispered as Poppy let herself in. The apartment was dark save for the flickering lights of the television, whose flashing pictures urged them to buy a complete suite of James Earl Jones DVDs. “Jenny is finally asleep, and I will end the life of anyone who wakes her before eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Relief shouldn’t have been Poppy’s first emotion at seeing her friend completely bedraggled and unkempt, but it was. Four months of cohabitation, and she never remembered how much motherhood drained a person.

“Rough night?” Poppy asked. She stepped carefully over Jenny, an almost-two-year-old bundle of heat, currently spread out all over the living room floor in what might have once been a fort but was now a tangled mess of blankets and exhaustion. “She always looks so sweet when she’s sleeping.”

Bea rubbed her eyes, spreading mascara over the tattoo that extended from the corner of one eye to her hairline, all shooting stars and pink skulls. It wasn’t the most maternal look in the world, but it matched Bea’s general aesthetic of shorn black hair and colorful highlights in an alternating pattern of blue and green. Her sweats also hid several other tattoos, most of them of naked fairies and wolves howling at the moon.

They’d been young. They’d had a friend with a mobile tattoo parlor, rolling through the late-night streets to the cheerful clang of an ice cream truck’s song. They were lucky that tattoos were the only thing Bea had caught.

“I swear, Poppy—it’s almost inhuman, how she acts when bedtime rolls around. It’s like she’ll eat my soul if I show a hint of weakness.”

They both looked down and watched as the little girl’s chubby, roseate cheeks quivered and blew out in the pattern of deep sleep that only children enjoy. Poppy was just about to offer all kinds of nonsensical compliments when Bea cleared her throat. It was a serious sound—one Poppy wasn’t all too keen on hearing at the moment.

“You got two phone calls today,” she said.

“Oh, really?” Poppy feigned unconcern. “Did you write down the messages?”

Poppy bent to scoop the little girl up and tuck her into her converted toddler bed that sat squeezed in Bea’s bedroom between the dresser and a futon. Things were tight in the apartment since Poppy had moved in—a burden she felt keenly, but Bea had insisted that her home would always be Poppy’s. The apartment was just one part of a long line of atonements Poppy hadn’t asked for and didn’t want.

When she reemerged from the bedroom, it was to find a much more alert Bea looking up at her. “The messages weren’t hard to remember. The first one was from your parole officer.”

“Nancy? That old battle-ax?” Poppy waved her off. “She’s always trying to butter me up. The last time I saw her, I believe the exact words used to describe me were, and I quote, ‘a black hole of common sense.’ I think she meant it as a compliment.”

Bea wasn’t amused. “She wants you to call her back in the morning. And you have to stop treating this like it’s a joke—”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Poppy leaned in and planted a kiss on Bea’s cheek. It was sticky and tasted of apple juice, clear evidence that bedtime really had been as rough as it looked. “Don’t worry so much.”

“If you want me to stop worrying, then explain why the second phone call was from Jared.”

Goddamn him.
She’d told her fence—the guy who was supposed to sell her necklace—not to call her at home. Or to call at all, actually, but taking hints had never been his strong suit.

“I’m sure he just wanted to chat about the good old days,” Poppy assured her. “You know how bad Jared is about taking a hint. I get the feeling he thinks we’re going to pick up where we let off. You know, now that I’m a free woman and all.”

Bea drooped—all of her, from the tired lines of her face to the solidly packed muscles of her body, which also fell in line with her general bad-ass appeal. Or what used to be her bad-ass appeal, anyway. Bea was officially out of the game now. Motherhood had forced early retirement, transforming her from a free-wheeling sidekick to this benevolent, maternal creature Poppy barely recognized anymore.

“You promise it’s not anything else?” Bea stood, her eyes traveling the length of Poppy, finally taking in the miniskirt-in-a-wastebasket look she had going on. “You’re not doing anything
illegal
?”

“Of course not,” Poppy lied smoothly. The less Bea knew about her current activities, the better it was for all of them. Besides, it wasn’t totally wrong, what she was doing. Lots of young, attractive, falsely blonde women dated older men to try to get them to buy expensive jewels. She was a little more intent on her goals, that was all.

She planted her hand firmly on her friend’s back and pushed her in the direction of the kitchen. “Everything is fine, I swear. I just find it difficult to stay inside for long periods of time. Whenever I turn around, the walls are a little bit closer, the air a little bit harder to breathe. I needed to get out.”

That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Even though the air outside had cooled to about forty degrees, she pushed open the window above the sink, letting the night air waft in with the tangy promise of rain. Small spaces had never bothered her before, but these days she couldn’t even stand in a closed gymnasium without feeling an overwhelming rush of panic. She needed windows and doors and the absolute certainty that she could walk away at any time.

“Want some chamomile?” Poppy asked, changing the subject.

“I wish you’d let me thank you,” Bea said quietly. She settled onto one of the yellow vinyl kitchen chairs and ran a finger along the edges of a Dora the Explorer placemat. “Ever since you got out—”

“Stop right there. I don’t want to hear another word on the subject, okay?”

“Poppy…”

Poppy clanged the teapot in the sink as she filled it with water, making as much noise as possible extracting the mugs and bags of tea. The last thing she wanted to do right now was get into a soul-searching discussion with Bea about the choices they’d made.

Why beat a dead horse when you can make some damn fine dog food and leather jackets out of it?
It wasn’t hard to imagine Grandma Jean standing in the kitchen with them, spouting her usual crass wisdom.

“There’s no reason, Bea,” Poppy said, her voice firm. “Regrets and apologies don’t mean anything. If I could go back, I’d do it all again.”

“And you’re sure you aren’t in any trouble?”

Oh, she was in trouble, all right—but not over anything Bea could control. Poppy’s biggest problem right now was that those two robbers had somehow known who she was—or at least who she was with the wig on and her breasts out. That meant she was being watched, and that her activities weren’t going unnoticed.

There was no way those men were there by accident. And there was no way she could just let that necklace go.

Todd was
her
mark, dammit. She wasn’t going to sit back and let him get poached by a pair of ham-fisted men in masks. Girly masks too—not some cool Zorro swatches of fabric, but velvety masquerade things. All that had been missing were some feathers and a cape, and it would have been a ticker-tape parade of mockery.

“I’m good,” Poppy said, a smile firmly on her face. “I promise.”

The kettle screamed then, and Poppy poured Bea her favorite calming tea. Thankfully, her friend was too tired to do much beyond lifting the steaming cup to her lips.

“Sit down,” Bea murmured. “All your energy is making me antsy.”

“I’m just going to do the dishes.” Poppy surveyed the mountain of pots and pans—most of them crusted over with baby food and macaroni and cheese—and pushed up her sleeves. In times of trouble, Grandma Jean had recommended elbow grease. Personally, she’d always preferred a hearty bout of hand-to-hand combat in the Pit.

These days, she’d take whatever she could get.

Chapter Two

“Someone has breached the perimeter,” Asprey announced, pulling a pair of binoculars down from his eyes.

Graff looked up from his book. “You make it sound like we’re in the White House or something. It’s probably a salesman or a Girl Scout. Get rid of them.”

Asprey ignored his brother and peered back through the window, which faced the runway leading up to the massive hangar they called home. This was definitely no salesman or little girl. The woman was still far enough away that he couldn’t make out all the details, but a smallish pair of jean shorts, bright teal cowboy boots and a flowy white blouse didn’t seem like standard attire for hawking Avon or vacuum cleaners.

“She’s on foot,” Asprey added, searching around for a parked car or bicycle. Located as they were at the end of an abandoned airport, the only other way to get to the hangar was by teleportation. They weren’t exactly on the bus route. “Why would anyone walk all the way out here?”

Graff slammed the book in his lap that time. “I don’t know, Asprey. Why don’t you go out there and ask? I know it might seem foreign to you, but I’m actually working over here.”

“Fine,” Asprey returned. “I’ll forcibly remove our visitor.” He set the binoculars aside and gently rotated his shoulder. It still hurt like a bitch—he’d gotten their younger sister, Tiffany, to pop it back in two nights ago, but she’d been less of the ministering angel he’d been hoping for and more like a gleeful spectator.

“Man up, big brother,”
she’d said as he lay on the ground and she lifted his arm over his head. Bones and joints weren’t supposed to go that way, he was sure of it.
“According to Graff, the woman could have done a lot worse to you. He said she went easy. I bet she thought you were cute.”

“Laugh it up, Tiffany,”
he’d replied.
“It’s easy for you to judge from the safety of your Internet cocoon back here at the lair.”

At least he thought that was what he’d said. His memories were rendered slightly hazy, what with the bone-searing pain and all. He might have just been screaming.

And now he had to hold his arm at a weird angle for days, moving around like a baby bird and praying there’d be no call for any sudden movements. Experience and multiple dislocations had taught him to avoid a sling—sucking it up and getting back to life were the best ways to make the recovery period ten times shorter, mostly because the muscles grew too stiff otherwise.

“Need some help?” Tiffany didn’t glance up from her computer, set up along the far wall of the hangar on a long, faux-wood table like the kind housed in school cafeterias. “I’m just about done with this code.”

“Sure,” Asprey said. “Why don’t we put you in charge of security? You can intimidate all incomers with your stature and overalls.”

That got her to look up. Tiffany promptly stuck out her tongue. “I can’t help that I’m short. And it’s called a romper.”

He laughed. “I can’t remember the last time you did anything even approaching romping.” For as long as he could recall, Tiffany had been attached to technology like her USB cord was some kind of umbilicus. She had the translucent skin tone and caffeine addiction to prove it.

“Can you please stop being an idiot for five minutes and go take care of our problem?” Graff asked.

“I was about to.” Asprey used his stiff movements to exaggerate a swagger. “Do you think I should do slick mobster or Texas Ranger?” When Graff didn’t answer right away, Asprey swiveled on one leg and pretended to pull a gun out of a holster. “Texas Ranger, I think. That thar woman won’t be able to resist the ol’ Asprey charm.”